To those that failed, I know exactly how you feel. It sucks. You see others celebrating and it is difficult to grasp. If you are anything like me, you may have thought you did better on the AM than the results show. It sucks, it sucks, it sucks.
The good news is that you are incredibly bright. You passed the first two exams which is by no means an easy task. Level 3 has very little to do with how bright you are, but more to do with how you recognize exactly what they are asking of you in the AM.
Things that worked for me:
-Schweser curriculum(old one, don’t buy the new shit as it is the same thing. Buy last years version at a discount. Save your money)
-Old AM papers. Find as many as possible and do them three times. Have a partner grade them. This is crucial. You have an inherent bias when you are grading with the “I didn’t exactly put down what the guideline answers says but I know what I meant.” - Bullshit, have someone else grade them
-Explain your understanding of each topic o someone else. Talk through it.
-MAKE YOUR OWN NOTES, INCLUDING ETHICS AND GIPS. If you start with Behavioral, review your own notes as you go along each section. Review is crucial.
You can do it. Its worth it. Don’t give up, it will be here before you know it. I still remember receiving my fail email last year. One year is a short time.
Thanks for the comments, I am in the same situation after failing with a band 4 this year. I passed the first 2 levels first time and scored a strong PM exam this year. Based on the Band and PM scores, I estimate my AM score at under 25% with only 1 category above 50. I knew a large portion of the AM exam and felt there were items set I nailed at 100%. I actually felt the AM session was easier than the PM, (Apparently not)
Thanks for the tips, and especially with the old AM papers. My strategy next year is going to me a much more on how to illustrate the appropriate answers.
yeah i did’t pass either. It definitely sucks because i put in a ton of time. I’m happy for the people who did pass though. However, I too got completely murdered on the AM section.
Will definitely need to find people to look at my AM’s for me because I felt it was good but apparently not enough.
thanks for this. i failed band 5 and felt pretty good about my chances, definitely was surprised with my poor band showing. i went 2/2 and felt i did a lot better than band 5, but i need to reassess, work hard, and take another crack at it
Are you sure about this? I always wonder whether the schweser note differ a lot from year to year, because if it doesn’t, I will buy the old schweser note as I saw that there is not many change from the 2016 lelvel III exam and the one in 2017 (replace only one topic). It is insane to pay much more for the same book.
Can confirm. I used 2015 Schweser for this years. Supplement any changes with the curriculum if you need to but there doesn’t appear to be any major changes I think. 2015 to 2016 there was no changes except in a few small Ethics sections.
Thank you for the information. By the way, congratz for passing the exam. I hope I can achieve the charter like you someday. Also, do you only use the schweser for level III. I only use schweser for level I and II and I want to follow the same strategy this time.
absolutely sure. Don’t waste your money on Q-Bank. Buy recycled and if there is new material, read only that new material from the official curriculum. Save your money.
This was my first crack at it and failed band 7, I put in the time, did the mock exams (9) just didn’t get that testing “luck” and the having to write the AM under test like conditions was really a lot harder then I was expecting - feel pretty defeated. Really appreciate your post, shows me that you can bounce back after a disappointing score.
I was thinking about finally abandoning schweser and trying what everyone says about using CFAI curriculum and all the end of chapter questions. After reading what you posted I feel like I should stick to my guns and just try and learn the material like the back of my hand.
Thanks for the encouraging comments…i really need this this morning - Band 6.
After getting over my shock and analysing my results and wondering whether my reliance on Schweser was reason, I think not…my PM scores were quite good so I think I know the concepts well but my AM scores were crap…so like you all said, should focus more on practice AM questions.
Really thought I did well in the AM…like so many other candidates probably thought as well.
Failed band 6 last year. Didn’t pay much heed to the advice of practicing the AM sections and was just reading the answers and spent a ton of time reading the curriculum, so messed the AM big time. This time I did a different strategy I didn’t really start studying until about Jan, before that i leisurely read the curriculum at my own pace focusing on stuff i thought were my weak points. Ethics i just did the EOC questions. I read the new reading that had been added and the Asset manager code because they weren’t too long and thought it best to read. I made sure I did the blue box examples and was maintaining a document with all relevant and important notes from the readings and questions. If i wasn’t clear on an answer i would copy paste the curriculum solution so i could reference it later. The EOC summaries were really good. I didn’t use any third party notes I had videos from Arif Irfanullah from 2015 that i would listen to when i couldn’t really read (at the gym, at the park with the kids etc.). I think what worked for me was practice and learning key concepts and relationships. You need to be writing out those answers to get into writing mode, also another thing I was doing was jotting down the sample answers for questions I wasn’t clear, at the end I knew I could reference back to the question for clear understanding. Personally I feel the mocks were way easier than the real thing, having said that the real thing was pretty straight forward if you had enough practice. In my opinion that is the key. Passed this time round in my second attempt. Good luck to all those planning on giving it next year.